<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>snow by mornen</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829299">snow</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen'>mornen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I see a darkness in you [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Childhood, Family, Fire, Gen, Grandmothers, Magic, Mother-Daughter Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:00:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>777</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829299</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Galadriel watches Arwen’s fingers brush the surface of the water. Flames dance along her fingers and creep up her arm. Arwen calmly lifts a handful of the flames with her other hand. The sky is very dark above her, and the flames run up her arm and into her hair. They do not burn her. (Could anything burn her?)</p><p>‘Are you afraid?’ Galadriel asks even though she knows the answer.</p><p>‘No,’ says Arwen. ‘My father has flames too. Sometimes he is water. Sometimes he is wind. Once he was stone, and he didn’t have a heartbeat. I wasn’t afraid then.’</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Arwen Undómiel &amp; Celebrían, Arwen Undómiel &amp; Galadriel | Artanis, Celebrían &amp; Galadriel | Artanis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I see a darkness in you [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>snow</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Galadriel wraps her scarf around Arwen’s shoulders. It is cold in the way that Lothlórien can get cold, which is not very and mostly in memory. But Arwen is young, and it is the dead of winter. </p><p>‘Why do you hate the winter?’ Arwen asks, her fingers hovering centimetres above the surface of the Mirror.  </p><p>Galadriel stands beneath a tree. She does not answer her, and she does not reprimand her. She watches Arwen’s fingers brush the surface of the water. Flames dance along her fingers and creep up her arm. Arwen calmly lifts a handful of the flames with her other hand. The sky is very dark above her, and the flames run up her arm and into her hair. They do not burn her. (Could anything burn her?)</p><p>‘Are you afraid?’ Galadriel asks even though she knows the answer.</p><p>‘No,’ says Arwen. ‘My father has flames too. Sometimes he is water. Sometimes he is wind. Once he was stone, and he didn’t have a heartbeat. I wasn’t afraid then.’ </p><p>Arwen blows on the flames on her fingertips and they cascade into the air and disappear into smoke. She holds her arms out to her sides as the flames engulf her. (She isn’t afraid of anything, is she?)</p><p>Galadriel says nothing. She’s seen too many things burn. Too many people.  Burning, engulfing, burning, dying. Maybe she doesn’t like fire any more than she likes winter. </p><p>‘Do you love me?’ Arwen says because she is too en-tuned to Galadriel’s mind and she felt it, that pain, that hatred, coming up again, rushing through Galadriel. Galadriel tightens her hands into fists, but she doesn’t turn and hit the tree until her knuckles bleed. She stands still. </p><p>She says, ‘Of course I do, dear.’</p><p>It’s the truth. It’s always the truth. She loves Arwen. But she looks Lúthien.  She looks like Melian. (She looks like Elrond.) And she’s standing with flames around her without even learning how. And she’s touching the water like she could drink from it and live. Her eyes are so grey and her hair darker than the night around them. She doesn’t come up to Galadriel’s shoulder. She is wreathed in flames. </p><p>‘What did I do wrong?’ she asks as the flames turn from orange to white and blue. </p><p>Lúthien’s fire was blue and white. It came out of her mouth and her eyes. She heaved it up with pain and threw it on the grass and it stayed, burning, but consuming nothing. Lúthien lay on her back on the grass, arms at her sides, flames running along her body, flames dancing through her hair. Melian stood over her with a pitcher to douse the flames. </p><p>‘Am I terrifying?’ Lúthien asked, stretched on the snow, naked and burning, eyes alight with stars, feathers over her skin. </p><p>‘Never,’ Melian answered. </p><p>But there is something terrifying in this. Because this is her grandchild burning in the woods. Because she’s bringing a wind around her without even singing, without even trying. Because it could all go so terribly wrong. </p><p>Celebrían comes into the clearing wrapped in a silver jacket. She leans against Galadriel and watches Arwen alight with flames. </p><p>‘What did your father say?’ she says. </p><p>‘That I can stop it if I think that every part of me is water,’ Arwen says. ‘That my arm is water. That my hair is water. That my voice is water. That my heart beats water. I want to breathe, but it’s so hot.’ </p><p>‘You are water,’ Celebrían says.</p><p>‘If I’m water, then I’m boiling,’ Arwen answers. ‘It’s boiling. All of me is too hot.’ </p><p>‘You are water,’ Celebrían says again. ‘Your arms are water. Your legs are water. Your blood is water. Your hair is water. There is water deep inside of you, dark and still, and it cannot be touched.’ </p><p>‘I am water,’ Arwen says, and the flames burn out in hot bursts, sizzling, and steam rises into the air all around them. Arwen stands drenched in water. Droplets run down her skin. Water falls from her hair. </p><p>Celebrían goes to her and unwraps her from Galadriel’s shawl. She undoes the buttons on the back of her dress. Arwen steps out of it. Celebrían wraps her in her jacket. </p><p>‘Why does Grandmother hate the winter?’ Arwen asks. </p><p>‘Because it is cold.’ </p><p>Celebrían wrings the water from Arwen’s hair. </p><p>‘What is she afraid of?’ Arwen asks. ‘Me?’ </p><p>‘I’m not afraid of you,’ Galadriel says. She’s only afraid of cold, and of pain, and of fire. Of how fast a hear can break forever. </p><p>Arwen looks down into the Mirror of Galadriel, but the water is gone. </p><p>‘I’m cold,’ she says.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>